Choosing the right optocoppler for your midi-in project (e.g. Arduino) The headlines almost says it all: when building an midi-input device for an µC-project e.g. an Arduino or an Raspberry Pi project, the first thing the MIDI cable “sees” is the optocoupler. And is important to choose the right one. A lot of ciruits relate [...][Continue Reading...]

Just finished a multi-purpose beater robot – in this case for a piano, but it can also be used for other things like drums or inside a piano to beat the strings. It uses 3D-printed parts and old hard disk head actuators and as you can see acts like a drunken sailor man. It is [...][Continue Reading...]

I lately build an Arduinoboy (Gameboy + Arduino + Midi) for our Band “Science Fiction Children” and found the information on the net quite dispersive for a 8bit-n00b like me. So here’s yet another Arduinoboy tutorial sharing my experience and adding some smaller hacks. The use of 8-Bit sounds[Continue Reading...]

Yesterday night I hacked together a quick and dirty Arduino MIDI-to-DMX control for our robot band Science Fiction Children . It’s really simple! And here’s how I did it. Goal: I have two really cheap LED Par56 from Stairville (DMX controlled), a simple DMX-Dimmer pack and use Ableton Live for our sound setup. So all [...][Continue Reading...]

A list of the most interesting (and this is fully subjective!) papers on robotic musical instruments and Human-machine interaction. [pdf] Toward Robotic Musicianship MIT Press, GIL and Scott, 2006 We present the development of a robotic percus-sionist named Haile that is designed to demonstrate musicianship. We define robotic musicianship in this context as a combination [...][Continue Reading...]

Due to of the high interest that hits us at moment we’d like to say a few words about our equipment. As stated [in another article], our (Moritz Simon Geist and [SCIENCE FICTION CHILDREN] ) – our vision is to have a decent electronic pop-band where no sound is generated inside a computer, but where [...][Continue Reading...]

I wanted to build a mechanic hand-clap robot for the installation MR-808 that sounds like a TR-808 clap. The TR-808’s clap is infamously snappy, punchy and broad. To tell the truth: I did not really reach the classiness of the original. But it still sounds similar. First of all[Continue Reading...]

Since 2005 I am constructing musical robots and automated instruments. My last robots was the MR-808. The goal is to build custom made instruments, which can be used in the context of electronic music in terms of musical structure. The technical demand is that they must be able to be played live, must integrate into [...][Continue Reading...]

When combining different robo-mechanic instruments and let them jam together, the most crucial point (beside from making awesome music) is to set the latencies right. The setup is mostly the same: we have a robotic music instrument (e.g. a snare with an solenoid actor), a somewhat electric power unit (Relay, Motordriver / FET-drive and an [...][Continue Reading...]

The TLC 5940 is a superb PWM Controller that provides 16 PWM outputs which can be controlled individually over an serial interface using only 5 pins of an Arduino. Many people use it to control RGB LEDs, but it can also be used when controlling Motors, Servos and Solenoids.[Continue Reading...]

"Sonicrobots is dedicated to robotic music instruments, autonomous tonal music machines, musical hacks and circuit bending. Music hacking is our form of anti-passiveness, through which we think the individual can have an impact on his or her environment, status and state of mind."
Moritz Simon Geist